The "Boob Tube" & Me
“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” Gil Scott-Heron '74 but it may be streamed.
Being born in 1949, TV was a relatively new thing when I was young. While the TV was invented way back in 1927, it was not really commercially viable until 20 years later. Less than 50,000 homes had a TV in 1946 but that number jumped to over 4 million by the time I was born. By 1955, when I turned 6 about 75% of homes in America had a TV. My parents didn't own one when I was born but I remember them getting a round 13” screen TV when we were living in Levittown on Long Island. I don't remember us watching it a lot. When I got old enough to watch for myself my parents set down rules on how much time I could “waste” watching TV. If my sister and I were caught watching during the day when the weather was nice we would be strongly encouraged to go outside and play, or at least do something else. Usually this came with a story about how they, my parents, didn't have TV and did activities with other kids. They didn't just sit around doing nothing. Whenever I stayed home from school because I was sick I had to watch a half hour of educational TV for every hour I watched of regular TV. My parents did watch TV but they were not big TV watchers. It certainly was not a nightly thing for them, but it did become a nightly thing for me and my sister as long as our homework was completed first.
The concern was that too much TV was not good for us and overall too much TV would likely have a bad influence on us. It would somehow corrupt us. Our parents, the WWII generation, had grown up in “The Depression” followed by “The War”. All they had was the radio. Radio stimulated one's imagination, according to them, and that was the reason it was better than the “boob tube”. The post war baby boomer generation had it too easy. Between TV and that new jungle music, AKA, Rock-n-Roll, we were being turned into a generation of juvenile delinquents.
Today I look at where the world is and what the so called baby boomers have wrought and I wonder if maybe my parents and their generation were on to something. Has TV actually been a bad influence? I now find myself wondering the same thing about the generation after us baby boomers in regards to phones and social media. I suppose we are all cursed to sooner or later turn into our parents.
Much of TV at that time, maybe most, were local broadcasts. Some of the first shows I remember seeing were “The Merry Mailman” “Captain Kangaroo” “Howdy Duty” with Buffalo Bob, “Rootie Kazootie” with Polka Dottie and a cast of characters that included a non-verbal policeman. Other shows were “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie”, Claude Kirchner's “Terrytoon Circus”, and the “Farmer Gray Cartoons”, Framer Gray cartoons were silent with a music background. Then there was Ding Dong School with Miss Francis. You gotta love that name! - Who's idea was that? Ding Dong School preceded Romper Room and as I recall, Miss Francis had nothing in common with some of the more attractive young Romper Room teachers we would see later.
TV didn't go all night back then. Stations signed off after their last broadcast of the day. I remember CBS had “The Late Show” that came on after the 11:00 news. It was an old movie and would be the last show on TV until early in the morning when either the “Early Show” or some sort of show like the farm report would come on. My memory is that all the other stations signed-off by 12. The sign-off was a picture of the American Flag with the National Anthem playing. After that was just simple screen with the channel number and probably the station call letters displayed.
Growing up in metropolitan New York we had 7 or 8 channels to choose from. We had all three national networks, CBS (2), NBC (4), and ABC (7) and we also had 4 or 5 local networks, one of them was that dreaded educational station, today we know it as PBS. Later I met people from more rural areas, let's face it, just about everywhere is more rural than the New York City area... I learned that it was fairly common in many parts of the country to have less than 3 channel choices. I didn't realize how spoiled I was.
TV shows were all in black and white. The government put controls on the broadcasting companies. For instance they were required to do broadcast news programs. They had to provide balanced news reports, e.g. they had to give equal time to each political party. (What? We should hear both sides?) Of course they had to adhere to a set of standards, pretty strict compared to today's. Oh wait, that's right we don't really have those anymore... Stuff like no cursing. No nudity or even hint of nudity, no sex. Heck, TV parents could not sleep in the same bed together, looking at you Rob and Laura Petrie. Well at least standards for violence were fairly lax. They were evidently trying to protect the youth of America but somehow we all learned to curse and have sex without the aid of TV.
As a family we did watch a few shows together. I remember us all watching “The Dick Van Dyke Show”. I also remember us watching the Barbra Streisand special “My Name is Barbra” together. Back then everyone watched the shows as they were broadcast since there was no recording or streaming options. VCR's were probably invented by then but they didn't start showing up in the general population until the late 70's and early 80's. Personally, I didn't own one until the 90's. Anyway so everyone saw the same TV programs at virtually the same time. We all watched the Beatles 1st appearance on Ed Sullivan together. News stories like the initial U.S. Space flights (Allen Shepard and John Glen) and JFK's assassination we all watched together on one of the 3 major networks where we were all fed essentially the exact same information. Even as late as 83 we all viewed the last M*A*S*H episode together. Those are the most iconic broadcasts of my lifetime and most of us retain the memory of watching them. We did TV separately but also together.
Today big news events come to us from our phone or computer for most, not so much from our TV. Not everyone sees it at the same time and probably more importantly we don't see it reported in the same way. The controls in this country have long been lifted; reporting generally comes with a heavy dose of bias.
Color came out around 1953 but shows in color didn't show up on TV until the later 50's and were not very common until the mid 60's. My grandparents got color TV's in the mid 60's. My parents did not get a color TV until after I was out of the house which would have been around 1969 or 1970. Either they missed me or with me gone they now had more time to relax and watch some TV.
Me, I didn't watch a lot of TV as I got older. I didn't have a TV in college or when I was in the Air Force. I finally picked up an old used 17 inch black and white TV when I was going to school in Eugene, but I didn't watch it much. I remember watching some basketball games with my friends and we would sometimes watch a Star Trek rerun. I did watch Saturday Night Live when it came on in '75. I kept that B&W TV for years. When Kris and I first got together Kris had a B&W 13” portable TV and on Sunday evenings we would watch “Murder She Wrote” on it together. My first color TV was with Kris, after we were married and we moved into our first house in the fall of 1988. It was a wedding present from Kris's dad, Bill. We had been living with him while our house was being built and I suspect he was willing to do just about anything to encourage us to move out....
Today we have a big 55 inch “smart” TV and like everyone we have more channels that we know what to do with. Plus there's streaming. We can save off a program for later viewing which we do all the time. We do watch a bit of TV but we are not big TV people. We generally watch a little something while eating lunch and we watch some on evenings we are home with the exception of Wednesday and Saturday nights, as those are no TV nights at our house. On those evenings we sit and talk with music playing in the background.
TV has certainly come a long way from the 50's when I was introduced to it. I do find interesting stuff to watch but it's still just a passive activity and while you can learn a lot by watching it's still not as good as doing and certainly not as good as directly interacting with others. I sometimes wonder if maybe my parents were right and that our lives would have actually been better without it.
Has anyone's dying regret ever been: “I just wish I had watched more TV”?....
Dave, unlike you, I grew up with a TV and it was on all day and into the night. It became second nature to have one. My girlfriend and I even splurged on a small color TV in Eugene. It is a curse and a wonder at the same time.
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